Teresa Stern is
writing a book on the new civil rights movement that inclues
oral histories of young activits.

Affirmative Action on Trialby Teresa Stern

In April, the Supreme Court begins deliberating a
case that could have a dramatic impact on the future
of racial integration in America’s colleges
and universities, and the decision the court will
hand down by summer may cause an upheaval not only
in admissions policies but in educational goals at
public and the vast majority of private colleges,
universities, and graduate schools that receive federal
funding. And it may shut down hope for millions
of young Americans.

The case, charging the University
of Michigan (UM) with "reverse discrimination”
for using race as a factor in admissions, could overturn
a widespread policy that was legally established in
1978. The Supreme Court's Bakke decision
that year held that while a quota system was unconstitutional,
it was lawful to take race into account in admissions.
President Bush stated on January 15 that he believed
the University of Michigan was using a quota system
for preferential admissions based on race.

A lightning rod for controversy over
integration and how to achieve it, the UM case has
revealed divisions even within President Bush’s
inner circle. Just after the Bush administration filed
a brief against the university’s affirmative
action process, Secretary of State Colin Powell told
CNN that he remained a "strong proponent of affirmative
action." National Security Advisor Condoleezza.
Rice, Bush’s other African-American Cabinet
member, said in an NBC interview that she had benefited
from affirmative action during her career at Stanford
University.

Lee Bollinger, president of the University
of Michigan at the time of the filings, called this
battle "the most important civil rights issue
since Brown v. Board of Education." If the Supreme
Court were to overturn affirmative action, he added,
it would be "an American tragedy."

The Lawsuits against Michigan
The Supreme Court will actually consider two cases
together: that of Jennifer Gratz, a white applicant
who was rejected by the UM undergraduate school, and
Barbara Grutter, a disappointed white applicant to
the UM law school. Each plaintiff individually sued
the school in 1997, claiming that she would have been
admitted if UM's race-sensitive affirmative action
policy had not instead accepted "less-qualified"
minority applicants.

The ultra-conservative Center for
Individual Rights (CIR) is paying for the legal challenges
of the two women. Since 1989, CIR has mounted numerous
legal actions against policies and practices designed
to equalize opportunity for not only minorities, but
also women. (One recent CIR initiative defends a group
of white residents in Farmingville, Long Island who
are trying to rid their community of Latino immigrants
they say are illegal; another attempts to block the
University of Minnesota’s payments to female
faculty members in settlement of a salary discrimination
suit.)

Going even further than President
Bush, CIR and other conservative organizations have
indicated that their next strategy will be to challenge
the constitutionality of percentage plans like the
one currently used in Texas on the basis that they,
too, amount to a racial quota system. (The Texas plan
promises any student in the top 10 percent of the
graduating class in any Texas high school a place
in the state's higher education system, regardless
of race.)

"The anti-affirmative action
camp is trying to resegregate American higher education
and American society as a whole," said Miranda
Massie, the lead attorney for minority students who
joined the Michigan cases as codefendants two years
ago. "That's what these cases are about."

Although Jennifer Gratz charges that
she was passed up in favor of a less-qualified applicant
from a minority group, the fact is that in 1995, the
year she applied, over 1,400 students in her peer
group (whites and Asians) with test scores and grades
lower than hers-- but still strong enough to meet
the school's undergraduate academic requirements--were
admitted. (Considered "overrepresented minorities,"
most Asians and Asian Americans generally do not benefit
from affirmative action in university admissions.)

*
Statement by President Bush, January 15, 2003,
opposing Michigan's policy*University of Michigan President Mary
Sue Coleman: from public responses, January 15
& 16, 2003*Read about how students are defending
affirmative action.